Planning the Value for Money programme

Our value for money programme is designed to apply the NAO’s knowledge and expertise, and the unique perspective of public audit, to help Parliament and Government drive lasting improvement in public services.

Each year the NAO draws up a programme of value for money work. We take account of suggestions from the Committee of Public Accounts (PAC), but the Comptroller and Auditor General alone decides on what the NAO will examine. Study proposals are put forward by the teams within the NAO who work on each department or cross-government team. In this way we ensure that those who have a detailed knowledge of, and regular contact with, all the bodies we audit contribute ideas about the main priorities on which we should concentrate our limited resources.

To allow us to have the greatest impact from our work, we focus on the drivers of public sector performance where our unique skills have most relevance and where there is potential to add value from our conclusions and recommendations.

The NAO Strategy sets out three themes which inform the direction of our work and which also guides our choice of value for money studies. These three themes are key aspects of performance across the public sector. By focusing many of our reports on these themes, our work can be targeted on tackling the systemic barriers to cost-effective public services. The themes are:

• Informed Government: the lifeblood of a successful organisation is the quality of information on which it makes decisions and monitors performance.
• Financial management and reporting: we will help departments control costs and drive out waste by improving their financial management, gaining a better understanding of the link between costs and services and benchmarking performance to identify areas where value for money can be improved.
• Cost effective service delivery: effective service delivery requires sound programme and project management, strong commercial skills, effective IT-enabled business change and a thorough understanding of customer needs.

Our Value for Money programme is also designed to produce topical reports based on robust evidence. We aim to give strong coverage to:

• the main government departments
• areas of high spending
• major risks to value for money
• topical subjects
• matters of strategic importance to departments

The focus of our VFM programme will change from year to year to reflect shifts of emphasis within these main areas. Currently, our work includes strong coverage of:

• Cost reduction we are examining how government bodies are developing and setting about implementing their plans for structured reductions in what they spend.
• Accountability we are looking at the impact of the reorganisations across government and use of new delivery models for accountability.
• Local level delivery many studies consider the whole delivery system or look at the ways in which services are funded, implemented and managed at local level.
• Cross-government issues many of our reports look right across government or a group of bodies to draw out common lessons and highlight successful practices.
• Tackling major economic challenges - we are looking on a regular basis at the major initiatives the Government is using to improve the current economic situation.

See also Publications and Work in Progress